In a classroom in India in the 1950s, Indira Nair experiences her first "teachable moment." She is a physics major at the University of Bombay engrossed in a quantum mechanics lecture. To her surprise, the professor isn't just pontificating on the subject. Nair and her classmates are being led from thermodynamics-where their last class ended-to the discovery of quantum mechanics by Max Planck. The professor questions his students carefully, engineering their discussion until they-not he-arrive at Planck's Quantum Hypothesis. For Nair, it's a revelation-not in physics, but in teaching. "Instead of propping something on students from the top," she explains, "you start with where they are and walk with them."
Years later, as a professor at Carnegie Mellon in Engineering and Public Policy and then as the vice provost for education, she encouraged her colleagues to "find the teachable moment"-a directive she became famous for on campus. For more than three decades, Nair taught science not as a set of abstractions, but as a dramatic story that mixes discoveries and setbacks within a cultural and historical narrative. She encouraged her students to dig in to that narrative and find what was meaningful to them. Her methods earned her many awards and honors and the admiration of countless students and colleagues.
And, as vice provost for education, she was integral to many university initiatives:
- Curriculum development
- Odyssey program for promising second-year students
- Undergraduate research and fellowships
- Graduate support and diversity programs
- Strategic planning in education as chair of the University Education Council
- Advising positions at numerous university centers and the University Lecture Series
It is no wonder, then, that her retirement last summer was met with tearful good-byes throughout campus.
-Shannon Deep (CMU'10, HNZ'11)
